Salary increases for Namibian politicians continue to be kept on hold until the economy improves, according to news reports.

The news was broken following a meeting between President Hage Geingob and newly appointed chairperson of the Public Office-Bearers Commission (POBC), judge Sylvester Mainga, and six members of the commission.

The last time the political office bearers, including Geingob, received a salary hike was in 2016 when POBC recommended that politicians increase the pay and perks by 6%.

One of the mandates of the commission is to make recommendations to the president regarding the perks and salaries of public office-bearers.

Mainga said after the meeting that it would be “difficult” to make any recommendations on salary hikes for all office bearers given the state of the economy.

The Namibian government is under pressure to scale down its salary bill accounts for about 80% of the operational budget.